It’s All About Finding Calm In The Chaos

So, hello friends! It’s been a while. I’ve been busy getting a new job, fighting my bipolar illness, moving, being a mom and trying to be a girlfriend.

This post, sadly, is not going to be makeup related, simply because I did not prepare anything for that because I just need to vent and get some things off of my chest. I will try to spare some details, for my sake and no one else’s.

Ever since I got pregnant my relationship with my boyfriend changed. Sure, that’s typical and normal, but it wasn’t the oh “baby makes three!” kind of change. It was the “anger, bitterness and contempt” kind of change. And this was purely on the side of my boyfriend. I wanted nothing more than to make our relationship work, dive head first into the mom things and simply have the “baby makes three!” kind of changes. But it’s not what I got. Mind you, I never wanted children. Neither did Paul. But when I got pregnant everything changed. I am pro-choice but abortion just didn’t seem right for me. With my addiction recovery, depression, having been raped and having been robbed at gunpoint, I just didn’t want one more thing on my mind that could possibly trigger some negative effects on my psyche. So I eventually told Paul I was keeping the baby. The relationship we had had, the one that I loved and felt so right and freeing, was over from that moment on.

I won’t downplay the fact that Paul had a lot of things on his mind, was battling and coming to grips with having a child he never wanted and still did not want (he even told me AFTER our son was born that he would not let me use his last name for our child), and he started developing chronic back problems on top of his other serious chronic conditions he had felt with for years. But looking back now, none of that is an excuse to do the things he ended up doing.

Having the baby was wonderful. The feeling of true, unconditional love was and still is the most amazing thing in my life, and I don’t for a second take that for granted. But having the baby also left a lot of emotional scars. I was anxious for the first time ever. My anxiety, up until recently, has been crippling ever since having the baby. My extreme body dysmorphia came back with a vengeance. I had worked so hard for y e a r s to tell myself that I was beautiful and my body was perfect the way it was and to just flat out accept myself. Having the baby sent me back to when I was 15 years old, 110 lbs, staring in the mirror and seeing a 250 lb person looking back at me. It affected me in every way. My confidence fell and on top of that, I was living with a man I was hopelessly in love with who, in turn, wanted absolutely nothing to do with me and the life we had created. So I lied. I lied to so many people, my family, my friends and even myself. I told everyone that things were hard, but fine. That he loved me and wanted to be with me. I told everyone that things were going to be okay. I watched friend after friend around me deal with breaking up with significant others after having a baby and I just couldn’t accept that that was the path I was headed towards.

Around 8 months after our son was born, I reached out to Paul’s ex girlfriend, now close friend, for advice. Paul had told me over and over that she and I would get along, but due to my own personal reasons, I had always refused to even try to speak to her.. but I finally did. It had become obvious over time, that while I was being ignored by Paul, he was having conversation after conversation with her. So I wanted to pick her brain and see what advice she could give me. After all, who knows better what it’s like being with him than his ex, right? She was the only person I knew who really kew who Paul was, he had refused to try and build relationships after moving here to VA. We had a very long conversation. It went from Facebook to text. Lots more texting. She told me some observations she had made, gave me a confidence boost, told me I was kicking ass despite the circumstances, and gave me some advice on how to approach things.

I later had a very serious talk with Paul, I’ll leave out the details, but essentially I explained for the umpteenth time that if he wanted out, here was the door. I didn’t want me or my son standing in the way of him being a happy, prosperous person, who achieved the goals he had set for himself. He told me he wanted to stay. That he would have left a long time ago if he didn’t want to be here. The conversation ended on a positive note. My boyfriend held our son for the first time, and not in a way so as to move him form one place to another. The saving grace in the next year that followed was that from that moment on, he started to fall in love with our son finally and acknowledge him. But all the while, this was happening, we still couldn’t find our groove again. I still felt that he was angry and resentful of the choice I had made to keep our son. Constant arguing and snipping at each other. Days at a time without speaking or touching. And then my depression came back. It was bad.

I really want to talk about the relationship I had with his ex, Kerri, and how badly it ended but I feel that’s best saved for another time when I have finally put it to rest in my mind. Suffice it to say, she has recently essentially told my boyfriend to break up with me because she does not like me at all, over what is basically a huge misunderstanding and miscommunication.

You know you need to break up with someone when you imagine the different ways and scenarios you can break up with him on a daily basis.

I always tried to shut the thoughts out by reminding myself what I loved about him and that things will get better with time. Time-I always had that excuse. But as my best friends will tell you, that always led me to the question “how much time do you give someone who has time and time again, failed you?” How much time do you give someone to stop being angry, take control of their own lives, treat you with respect and just decide to be fucking happy? With my anxiety and depression worsening, so did our relationship. The house became a wreck. Even thinking about doing a chore was too much most days. Getting out of bed to use the bathroom was a huge mental struggle a lot of the time, especially after losing my job. The financial burdens weighed on me so heavily. And I became that text book example of someone who has so much not their plate that they just go to bed and avoid it all. I spent some time with my ex boyfriend, but realized quickly that being close friends with exes is actually pretty weird and disrespectful. Because, typically, where there is an ex, there is always some sort of emotional care. And that time you invest in your relationship with your ex, becomes time and investment that you take away from your significant other. This became one thing we fought about. After realizing this, even though I really liked her as a person and wanted to be her friend, I still could not be okay with the fact that Paul confided in Kerri. He confided in her and her alone. Anything serious on his mind I had to ask her about because he would tell her and literally just not have anything to say to me whenever I asked him about it. Emotional attachment that was going towards her, and not me. Further driving a wedge into our relationship.

It got to the point that I didn’t even want to ask him about anything serious because I was afraid to look foolish by receiving no answer or a shitty answer yet again. Time and time again we would have a serious talk about making things work. “Do you still want to be here?” “Yes.” “This is what I need.” “Okay.” “What are your thoughts or replies to what I’ve just said to you?” *crickets*. There was always silence. And the very few times he had anything to say, it was simply to tell me that he had nothing to say. He felt nothing. I could be crying my eyes out and pouring my heart out and he wouldn’t bat a lash.The anger. The resentment. Always readily at the surface, bubbling up. It was so obvious but he would never tell me. Even when I asked.

During the time since he had moved here, I lost a close friend, again, reasons I will not say. And this friend became close with Paul. It became a huge thing on my end because this person, and people around him, would talk demeaningly about me to Paul. He wouldn’t bat a lash. Now, I don’t know about you, but if anyone has anything rude or crude to say about a friend of mine, let alone the mother of my child/girlfriend who I now claim to love, I would not stand for it. I would tell them that that is there opinion but never say anything like that to me again. He did not. He even joined in at times. I saw a few messages on accident on his phone (he had message preview on and his phone was literally in my hand when some of them came.) This became a problem. The self doubt crept back even harder than before. My own boyfriend thought that I was a joke.

Now, I will take the time to say that I know a lot about Paul’s past, his fear of commitment, his anger about other things in his life, etc. And while they are no excuse to treat me this way (I, too was not perfect I might add), they made me be able to justify why he might do the things he did. I’m a lot to deal with. I’m manic, I’m depressed, I’m always sick or dealing with an ailment. I get jealous easily, I get angry easily. I’m my own worst enemy the majority of the time. Up until recently I was not driven in life. I was and am scattered. I’m not focused. Most of these things are the complete opposite of Paul. If you know anything about Astrology, I’m a Cancer and he’s a Capricorn. Basically, I’m an emotional mommy, who is moody and unorganized, but has a huge heart bursting with love. While he is focused, goal-oriented, clean and cold, often emotionless. Our differences are very hard to ignore 90% of the time these days. Before getting pregnant we overlooked them because the infatuation and similarities where so strong.

I’ve slowly been coming back to myself lately. I’ve been on a steady pharmaceutical diet to keep me balanced. I’ve been losing the baby weight finally, which is making me feel extremely confident. I found a great, relaxing job that basically fell into my lap at the perfect time and has given me an everyday kind of purpose again. The only thing left was to take charge of my relationship. Things seemed to be going alright. But they weren’t. I just didn’t realize it. I was so high up on this “take back my life” horse, that I didn’t notice the anger anymore coming from Paul. But it was still there, waiting to rear its ugly head again.

At the end of November, it came to a boiling point. I did what I had been afraid for so long to do. I kicked Paul out. I broke the cardinal rule and went through his phone. I take responsibility for not respecting his privacy. But I had had this gut feeling for a few days that something was not right. I found out that he had said some extremely crude and disrespectful things about me to someone just a day or two before. And was laughing about it like I was a fucking joke. I look like an idiot. That’s what I have felt for so long. Do you know how many people have asked me if my boyfriend hates me? Do you know how many excuses I made for this guy? This guy who claims he loves me and I’m the “best thing to happen to his life”, but treats me like dirt and makes me look like a fucking idiot to the general public? I had had it. That was it. I woke him up after throwing almost all of his possessions into boxes in a pile. I told him the get the fuck out. He had nothing to say to me about it. I asked if I was a joke to him and all he had to say was “you’re pretty fucking funny”. My dad came over and tried to make things better. I cried and cried while talking to Paul. Eventually it came down to “what makes you think you want to be with me?” and his response was simply “I guess I don’t”. And that was that, he got most of his stuff into a friend’s car, while I soaked my friend’s shirt with tears as she held me. I spent the night in shock. In denial that this was reality. That I had spent all of this time for what, this? I woke up the next day and got dressed. That was hard. But I refused to let myself be down. As the day went on I had an overwhelming sense of peace fall over me. I’m going to be okay. I knew I would be. No matter what happened, Paul or no Paul, my life was going to a good one. I would always have my son, and I control my own happiness. It was so calming and relieving. I had wanted to feel that feeling for so many years. I had struggled in my mind for so long with just wanting to feel at peace, and I finally felt it in all of it’s glory. It was a powerful moment.

Two days later, Paul came to me, humbled from what had happened and told me the things I had been waiting to hear for so long. He made the first sincere apology I had ever heard him say. He confessed things to me that, if you knew him, you would know took a lot of emotional strength and courage to say. I had sent him a message the night I told him to leave. I told him every single thing about him that had made me fall in love with him and stay that way. The reasons why I had continuously killed myself emotionally to keep our relationship afloat. I told him that if he didn’t feel the same way, if he couldn’t reciprocate, then what was the point anymore? If he couldn’t even tell me why we should stay together, then it was time to throw in the towel. Well, he told me why we should stay together, why he wanted to be with me, and what he loved about me. He told me that he was ready to let go of his anger. He was sorry it took so long for him to do it. Literally just within the last week, have I allowed him to start bringing his possessions back into my house and stay here every night. I gave him a list of demands essentially. This has to change, that has to change. I need communication and affection. I demand respect. I demand honesty and partnership. Our son and I come very first. No other relationship in his life is more important than the one he has with us, his family.

We’ve always had a funny relationship. We met at a house show I had at my house. He left his lap top there by accident (the jury is still out on that one) and immediately made plans for him to come visit and retrieve it. We were smitten right away. I fell in love with him the very first moment I saw him. I didn’t believe in love at first sight until it happened to me. And I mean it literally, it hit me like a brick when I first saw him. He lived on Long Island and I, here. We traveled back and forth monthly to see each other. Texted and face timed all day everyday. It was meant to be. We got pregnant the day we started officially dating, just shy of 7 months since meeting. We’ve never had a normal relationship. But that’s okay. Anyone who says love and companionship is easy if a fucking liar. Even the most in sync people will have times they fall out of rhythm (that’s the first time I’ve spelled that word correctly without the help of autocorrect). I haven’t written this to talk badly about Paul. I don’t want anyone thinking differently of him for this, either. We are all human. We all fall short of perfection. I have treated people I love like crap, myself. I’m no angel. And at the end of the day, Paul is very intelligent, talented, witty and funny. He holds the doors for people, offers to help out around my family’s homes. He is clean and tidy. He’s also the most driven person I’ve ever met. He refuses to give up on something he wants, even if it’s hard getting there.

Now you may think that I’m an idiot for giving this guy yet another shot. But I’ve overcome my fear of losing him. I’m not afraid to break up with him if things go sour. As I said, my life is going to be good no matter what, because I’m a good person with a huge support system and the unconditional love of a child of my own. But I tell you, for the first time in almost 3 years, I wake up in the morning and don’t feel the anger, the resentment or bitterness resonating off of him anymore. I can tell he has let go of it. He’s getting help, himself, for the emotional issues he has and his chronic pain (ongoing pain can cause depressions and lashing out). I’m not afraid to tell him things or ask him what’s on his mind or what’s wrong. We joke again. We laugh. HE talks to me with respect again. And I actually FEEL it when he says he loves me. There’s finally a reason behind him saying it. It hasn’t been that long but it’s more progress than we’ve made in over a dozen attempts throughout the last 3 years.

I can’t tell you things will continue to be good or even get better. I’m not a psychic. But that’s okay if not. I’m living in the now and enjoying my life finally. So as I’m writing this, I really just want to say to everyone that YOU decide how good of a day you’ll have. YOU decide what you deserve and should seek it out. Be the person you want to be. Have the friendships and relationships you want to have. Don’t let anyone treat you with disrespect or unkindness. But also, have compassion. Have forgiveness in your heart. Holding onto anger makes things worse than the original problem even was. It makes you bitter and hurts you from the inside out and will bleed onto your relationships with everyone around you. Let go of the negativity and just live. It’s fucking amazing. I still feel that peace I felt that next day. Sure, I have pains and problems still. But I wake up every morning, and go to sleep every night with an overwhelming sense of calm and contentment. Happiness is out there, you’ve just got to go and get it.

I’m going to start the New Year with a great attitude. I hope you do too! Happy New Year, y’all! Goddess Bless.